COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new bill in the Ohio Senate would decriminalize industrial hemp cultivation and specify that people can possess CBD oil – which is derived from the plant – legally in the state.

Senate Bill 57 would create an industrial hemp program under the Ohio Department of Agriculture. It is sponsored by Republican Sens. Brian Hill of Zanesville and Stephen Huffman of the Dayton area. Co-sponsors include Sens. Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, and John Eklund, a Munson Township Republican.

Hemp and marijuana come from the same genus but are different plants, Hill and Huffman wrote in a memo to Senate colleagues. The main difference between the two is that marijuana contains THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient that produces the “high.” Industrial hemp contains 0.3 percent or less of THC, they write.

The bill makes it clear that industrial hemp and marijuana are separate plants: “"Marihuana’ does not include hemp or a hemp product,” it says, using an older-spelling of the drug that has been used for decades in state law.

Under S.B. 57:

The Ohio Department of Agriculture director would issue hemp cultivation licenses, which are valid for five years. People who have been convicted of a controlled substance felony in the past 10 years could not get licenses. Licensees would be required to have a procedure to test THC.

The Ag department could randomly sample licensees’ plants to ensure the hemp is being grown for lawful purposes. Growers who violate the law would face a minor misdemeanor charge on the first offense and a fourth-degree misdemeanor on subsequent violations. On the third offense, growers would be ineligible to possess a license in the future.

The Ohio Department of Ag and universities would be allowed to grow industrial hemp without a license.

The public could possess, buy, sell, process and research hemp and hemp products without a license, according to the bill.

Cannabidiol or CBD, is derived from the hemp plant. The Ohio State Board of Pharmacy has said it is illegal for drug stores or gas stations to sell it. The Pharmacy board said it could only be sold in medical marijuana dispensaries. The only people who could obtain CBD would be patients who were cleared by the state to buy medical marijuana.

Congress recently passed the 2018 Farm Bill that removed hemp from the scheduled substances list, meaning the only barrier between Ohio and legal hemp is state law.

Joe Cornely of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation said there is increased interest in hemp among producers.

“We changed our policy toward hemp at our annual meeting last December," he said. "Every year we get our farmers together, close to 350 delegates vote on all our policies, which are essentially our marching orders. We changed our policy to say we’re interested in exploring industrial hemp as a product farmers can grow in Ohio.”

At a Tuesday event sponsored by the Associated Press, Ohio General Assembly leaders didn’t indicate they would green light the bill - saying they either didn’t know much about hemp or were more concerned about Ohio’s medical marijuana program running smoothly.

“It’s at the beginning of the legislative process, and we will assign it to a committee and air out the issues and we’ll see where we end up,” Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof said.